Area businesses stay relevant through reinvention

ROCKFORD - When Swedish immigrant Martin Benson came to Rockford from Indiana in 1930, he bought a small stone mill that cut limestone used for commercial buildings.

The Benson family is still cutting stone, but it's not like it used to be.

The demise of photographic film has brought big changes to Camera Craft. The company, which traces its roots to 1914, has embraced the digital world of photography and moved closer to shopping traffic now that it's become part of the consumer electronics industry.

And Lindstrom Travel has been helping people find paradise for 86 years, surviving corporate shakeouts, e-tickets and the booms and busts that the travel business delivers. People are still traveling, and Lindstrom has changed to keep getting them there.

The longevity these Rockford businesses have experienced doesn't happen by accident. They've stayed relevant by reinventing themselves, emerging from the chaos of constantly changing markets with new concepts to grow.

How do companies reinvent themselves?

"The first thing they have to have is exceptional leadership," said Brian R. McIntyre, director of the Small Business Development Council at Rock Valley College. "They have to be able to identify what's going on in the marketplace before it's too late and to react to it before it is too late."

That's difficult. McIntyre says that the average leader doesn't have both qualities.

"They can see what's going on but can't comprehend what to do about it."

Businesses grow up and many owners become averse to change. They're making money and see no need to reinvent.

"The ability to pull off this difficult feat - to jump from the maturity stage of one business to the growth stage of the next - is what separates high performers from those whose time at the top is all too brief," wrote Paul Nunes, executive director of research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance, and Tim Breene, CEO of Accenture Interactive, in 2011's "Reinvent Your Business Before It's Too Late."

The need to reinvent may not be obvious. It often comes at a time when profits and revenue are surging, and business valuation is at its peak.

"But that's exactly when managers need to take action," Nunes and Breene wrote.

"The potential consequences are dire for any organization that fails to reinvent itself in time. As Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever demonstrate in their book "Stall Points," once a company runs up against a major stall in its growth, it has less than a 10 percent chance of ever fully recovering."

Stalled companies end up shrinking, or in bankruptcy court. Those that innovate keep their companies moving forward. But that's not easy either, and growth isn't linear.

Benson Stone has been around for 74 years, but the company was closed for a spell during World War II. M. Howard Benson, Andrew Benson's grandfather, went to work in an ordnance plant but after the war ended and soldiers returned, home construction boomed. The shop reopened.

While stone fabrication was once the sole source of business for Benson Stone Co., 1100 11th St., it now represents only about 2 percent of the fourth-generation company's revenue.

Benson Stone has diversified, grown and reinvented itself over the years as market conditions changed and new opportunities appeared.

These days, Benson Stone is a retailer, selling furniture, fireplaces, wood stoves, barbecue grills, flooring, landscape suppliers and marble and granite counters in addition to building stone and brick.

It also has a restaurant on the ground floor.

"With the younger generation entering the business, there was energy to doing new things," said Andrew Stone, president of Benson Stone Co.

When retail boomed in the 1990s, Benson Stone opened a store on East State Street to sell fireplaces and patio furniture. But after it bought the vacant building last occupied by Rockford Standard Furniture, it consolidated operations back in the neighborhood a block away from the company's original location at 10th Avenue and 10th Street.

Benson Stone's diverse offerings have made it a destination.

"If you look at what we've added the last 20 years, it's all of that stuff that saw us through the recession," Benson said. "Before that time we were relying on the home and commercial construction markets."

Markets are constantly in flux, but thanks to technology the change has never been more rapid. Perhaps no one knows that better than Tom Brady, owner of Camera Craft, 3801 N. Perryville Road.

More photographs are taken today than ever before, with the emergence of cell phone cameras. But how people use photos has changed.

"With this digital age comes a lot of confusion, which also offers opportunities," Brady said. "Film served us well for 100 years. And it still does. But it's not as fast, and it doesn't offer as many enhancements as digital. That's what brings people into the store and now we have the expertise to guide them along."

Unlike the film days, most photos taken today are never printed. They stay on a hard drive or server. Special photos may be shared on social media or make it to a digital picture frame. Film sales have steadily declined and have gone from a mass market to niche product. The explosion of cell phone cameras have caused sales of point-and-shoot cameras to plunge.

But the art and craft of photography is still something that's learned. Brady said photo processing labs and film companies used to back the seminars and workshops that taught generations how to take great pictures.

But the demise of the film-based photography business has left a training void, and an opportunity for Camera Craft.

Photo enthusiasts want higher quality images and more options than a cell phone offers. They still want many of the features offered by single lens reflex cameras: changeable lenses, control over shutter speed and exposure, better flash units and accessories for their hobby.

While Canon, Nikon and other camera companies have implemented a national pricing for resellers. Brady said photographers still want to learn and explore new equipment and techniques.

So Camera Craft is differentiating itself by increasing the number of seminars, classes, workshops and programs for photography enthusiasts. Education and relationships with customers has become a reinvention strategy. Location has too. Camera Craft moved after 37 years to Rockford's far east side from North Alpine Road to improve visibility and proximity to shopping traffic.

Companies that successfully reinvent themselves must learn how to react to changes they have no control over.

That's happened in the travel industry, which has seen plenty of companies disappear over the past 25 years. Several event developments have reshaped how travel agencies work.

The emergence of Internet ticketing and a decision by airlines to stop paying commissions for tickets booked by travel agencies has contributed to a shift in the industry and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks brought big changes, said John Sturm, president of Lindstrom Travel, 5970 Guilford Road.

In the 1980s there were more than a dozen strong travel agencies in Rockford and several dozen more agents with home businesses, Sturm said. Now there are three, he said.

Sturm said that 25 years ago business was split evenly between corporate and consumer travel. These days, 95 percent of the Lindstrom's business is from vacationers.

"We realized that business travel was dog eat dog so we focused on vacation travel," he said.

And instead of focusing on cheap tickets, Lindstrom went after vacation packages, cruises and group travel, things that are difficult to book on the Internet. People will pay for convenience.

"Instead of dealing with every cruise company or every travel company, we decided we would work with certain ones," Sturm said. "We narrowed our focus and worked with our suppliers, and that's what made the difference."

Sturm said that while Lindstrom Travel is 86 years old, it remains nimble and open to reinvent itself as markets and customers change.

"We don't sit back and say how great it was yesterday," he said. "We're always looking at tomorrow."

Brian Leaf: 815-987-1343; bleaf@rrstar.com; @b_leaf

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